Sinking the Galatia

The generations will judge us
For what we do this day.
But you and I and one another
Know that it has to be like this.”

Thus quoth the captain,
His navy blue uniform
And white caftan
Fluttering in the jogging breeze,
The sort that foretells a nor'easter.

I bowed my head, remembering the Galatia
's if she were a'ready gone.
“She were a good ship,”
The captain said –
It was a eulogy –
And as the rain came
And washed the grime
Of twenty years at sea
Into the churning deep –
The body prepared for burial –
The crew all sang a song,
A hymn, it seemed,
And all were still.

We scuttled her that night
Without sight o' land,
And all the men abandoned ship and swam without hope.
The craft listed, and the creak of the mast,
As it rolled into the water like a sick dog,
Sounded to me like a banshee,
An' all the cannon slid, scraped petitions ignored,
Into the foaming sea.